Part 4

Can scientific education hope to solve the sexual problems of society by inculcating such fear of venereal diseases that men will remain true to the monogamic code of morality? Many cynical disbelievers in sex-hygiene answer this question negatively by asking in biblical phrase, "Can the leopard change his spots?" In other words, these doubting ones believe that sexual instincts are so firmly fixed in the nature of _many_ men and _some_ women that there is no hope of radical change through education.[3] There is something in this point of view. It is probably true that even the most radical advocates of sex-education do not hope to secure universal monogamy and consequent disappearance of social diseases. A conservative and rational answer to the above question whether sex-education can solve the problem of social diseases, is that a large percentage of even civilized people are not yet ready to have their most powerful instincts controlled by scientific knowledge. Hence, there is no hope that the hygienic task of sex-education will be finished soon after instruction becomes an established part of general education in homes and schools. At the very best there will be incomplete returns for the social-hygienic aspect of sex-instruction, but already we know for a certainty that enough young men will be influenced to make the teaching justifiable. I feel sure of this because I have met personally many such men and my friends know many more.

According to the investigations made by Dr. Exner, the medical secretary of the Young Men's Christian Association, a great reduction of venereal disease has followed sex-hygienic campaigns in college towns.

[Sidenote: Medical treatment.]

In another way hygienic teaching may reduce the amount of venereal diseases, and that is by leading infected individuals to seek thorough medical treatment without delay. This, of course, will render the diseased person non-infectious to others. Physicians report that there is now a marked movement in this direction and, moreover, that many infected young men voluntarily seek medical examinations before marriage.

[Sidenote: Woman's need of information.]

Even if we refuse to believe that social-hygienic teaching will protect many young men from sexual diseases, there is the woman's need of information to be considered. As said before, women more than men suffer the consequences of venereal infections. Therefore, every young woman who considers marriage should know the possibility of danger to herself and her children, and be able to decide accordingly. Of course, even with much knowledge she may marry the wrong man, for correct diagnosis of social disease is not always easy; but if her confidence is betrayed and she becomes infected, she ought to know the importance of immediate and radical medical treatment. Let me illustrate these statements that women should know the danger of venereal disease. One of my college friends neglected an important legal case to travel seven hundred miles in order to tell face to face another college friend that she was about to marry a dangerous man. Being utterly ignorant of the existence of sexual diseases, the girl and her mother characterized my friend's statement by a short and ugly word, and ordered him to leave their home instantly. The marriage occurred and some months later the young woman went to her grave, a victim of gonorrheal salpingitis and peritonitis.

Another case which illustrates the danger of a woman's ignorance: One of my students of many years ago married a minister who infected her with syphilis and kept her from medical attention until the disease was in a highly developed stage, and even then conspired with an inefficient doctor to keep her ignorant of the nature of the disease.

[Sidenote: The right to knowledge.]

These are not extreme cases, for any physician with large experience knows that such things are common. Medical literature is full of such painful recitals of venereal tragedies. It is not desirable that all young women should know the details of such tragedies, but they should know that dangers exist. Parents and educators will not have done their duty until they coöperate to give all young women the protective knowledge they have a right to demand.[4]

[Sidenote: Best people must lead.]

There is another way of looking at the possible effect of the social side of sex-hygienic instruction. It is sure to make a decided impression upon many young people of the type that we regard as the best in every way. These will be the leaders of the future and they in turn will help improve conditions. Perhaps it may all work out as the drug problem is being solved. Widespread social and hygienic information regarding the harmful effect of alcohol, cocaine, opium, and other drugs has first of all impressed leading citizens; and these are beginning to control by laws those who cannot be reached directly by education. In some such ways those who are impressed by formal sex-education may lend a hand in influencing many who could not be touched directly by hygienic education.

[Sidenote: Legislation needed.]

There is no doubt that public enlightenment regarding the dangers of social diseases will soon lead to legislation and public medical work which will contribute greatly towards reduction of the diseases. For example, legislation with reference to venereal disease should require doctors to report cases to health officers, should forbid "quack" advertising of fake "cures," should forbid sale by drug stores of nostrums for personal treatment, should provide dispensaries and hospitals for reliable treatment at reasonable cost, should require medical examinations for marriage licenses and provide for such examinations at moderate charges or at public expense, should require certain sanitary precautions in care of eyes of new-born infants, and should provide for discovery and treatment of congenital syphilis in school children. These are lines in which good laws might help vastly in the war against the social diseases. Moreover, it is obvious that all laws which help control the social evil will work indirectly against the social diseases.

[Sidenote: Probable results of instruction.]

In conclusion, it seems probable that popular knowledge of the social side of sex-hygiene will reduce the amount of venereal disease (1) by teaching some people the dangers of promiscuity, (2) by adoption of certain sanitary precautions that lessen danger of infection, (3) by leading people to seek competent medical aid which, while often failing to restore the victim's health, will probably eliminate the danger of contagion for others, and (4) by intelligent support of laws that directly or indirectly affect the social diseases.

[Sidenote: Social diseases not most important.]

I have given great prominence to the social-sexual diseases in their relation to sex-education because along this line there has been developed the widespread interest in sex-instruction as _one_ method of protecting young people against promiscuity. So far as the questions of teaching are concerned, my personal view is that some of the other reasons or problems for sex-instruction are more important, because I believe that educational emphasis on them will give the greatest results in improved sexual conditions of society.

§ 8. _Third Problem for Sex-instruction: the Social Evil_

So far as the problems of sex-education are concerned, there is nothing to be gained by an extensive review of commercialized prostitution. It is generally accepted that the social evil or prostitution is increased by the common ignorance of young people of both sexes regarding the physical and social relations of sex.

Of course, it is not true that all prostitution is due to ignorance, for it often involves enlightened men and women. However, there seems to be good reason for believing that large numbers of people of both sexes might be kept out of prostitution by very simple sex-instruction. Let us look for a moment at some facts concerning the relation of the ignorance of the women to their entrance into the underworld, and later consider certain reasons why many men patronize the social evil.

[Sidenote: Why women enter prostitution.]

With regard to the women victims of prostitution, it seems to be generally accepted that economic pressure, feeble-mindedness, bad social environment, and unguided instincts, independently or combined, are the chief causes of their downfall. However, there is a deeper reason why numerous women enter prostitution, for all of these factors commonly operate because of inadequate sexual knowledge. In short, ignorance is the fundamental cause of much prostitution on the part of women. Many a girl with starvation wages, bad social surroundings, sub-normal mentality, or even intense instincts is able to keep her womanhood because she knows the awful dangers of sexual promiscuity. For our present educational purposes, it is sufficient to point out the opinion of competent social workers that knowledge might often counteract the forces that lead women from virtue and down into prostitution.

[Sidenote: Men also ignorant.]

A large number of men patronize prostitution because they are ignorant in one or more of the following respects. Some of them have drifted into abnormal sexual habits when they were boys, and later into illicit relations. Some of them did not know the effect of alcoholic drinks in leading many young men to their first immoral sexual acts. Some of them have deliberately patronized prostitution because they have accepted as truth the monstrous lie that sexual activity is necessary to preserve the health of men.[5] Most of the men do not realize that prostitution offers great danger to their own health, still greater danger to the health of innocent wives and children, and a greatly shortened life for many women who are the victims of sexual slavery. Most men do not know that dark tragedies are often concealed beneath the apparent gay life of the women who are victims of sexual degradation. These are some of the things of which many young men I have known were very ignorant, and it has been no difficult task to trace a close connection between their ignorance and their vice.

[Sidenote: Ignorance the chief cause.]

Looking at the social evil from any point of view, it seems to me that ignorance, dense ignorance, is largely responsible for the existence of that darkest blot on our boasted civilization--the social-sexual evil. No matter how we look at the established facts regarding prostitution, they all point to the need of sexual instruction for the protection of the youth of both sexes. The Chicago Vice Commission concluded that "the lack of information, education and training with reference to the function and control of the sexual instinct, and the consequences of its abuse and perversion, appears at every point of our inquiry for the sources of the supply of the victims of vice, either as the cause of the perversion of children and youth or as a complication of all other causes."[6] Of course, we dare not dream that any sex-instruction that now seems possible will completely eradicate prostitution; but we do know of thousands of boys and girls who have been directed to safety by knowledge of some fundamental sexual facts.

[Sidenote: Sex plays and novels.]

Concerning presentation of the social evil by fiction and the drama, there is much honest disagreement. My personal opinion is that little good is done by the theater or by such publications as Reginald Kaufmann's "House of Bondage," and Elizabeth Robin's "My Little Sister." They all leave the unsophisticated reader with an exaggerated and even hysterical notion that white slavery is exceedingly common and the main cause of prostitution. Certainly the great majority of the army of prostitutes, both public and clandestine, in America, and a still higher percentage on the continent of Europe, did not become novitiates of vice in prisons of prostitution.

[Sidenote: Limited reading desirable.]

It seems to me that a very limited reading regarding the social evil is sufficient for one who is not engaged in medical or social work that requires scientific knowledge of this darkest side of human life. Certainly, the indiscriminate reading of vice investigations is dangerous for many young people,--for young men because some of them are allured into personal investigations, and for young women because they get an exaggerated and pessimistic view of all sexual problems. For the intelligent reader who wants the general information that every public-spirited citizen should have, the well-known book by Jane Addams will serve both as an outline and an encyclopedia of the social evil. Social workers and some educators will find use for the other books mentioned below.

Jane Addams.--"A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil." (Macmillan).

Seligman, E.R.A. (Editor).--"The Social Evil." (Putnam.) Contains bibliography on the subject.

Sumner, Dean W.T., and others.--"The Social Evil in Chicago." Vice-Commission Report, 1911. Now published by the American Social Hygiene Association. The "introduction and summary" (pp. 25-47) deserves careful reading.

Cocks, O.G.--"The Social Evil" (Association Press).

"Vigilance," a journal devoted to attacking the social evil, has been discontinued and replaced by bulletins of the American Social Hygiene Association, 105 West 40th Street, New York City.

§ 9. _The Fourth Problem for Sex-education: Illegitimacy_

[Sidenote: Society condemns illegitimacy.]

Most awful of all the results of the sexual mistakes of men and women are the unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Of course, I know that there are well-meaning people who argue that motherhood is the supreme fact and that the formality of a marriage ceremony is merely a medievalism in our laws and customs; but the inexorable truth remains that our modern social system is centered around the home which is strictly regulated by church and state and public opinion.[7] Whatever may be the philosophical rights and wrongs of individual freedom in sexual relationship, the facts of practical life are that an overwhelming majority of the most intelligent people are united in support of our established laws and customs demanding legitimacy of motherhood and birthright. As a result of this age-old stand for legitimacy, illegitimate mothers and children do not have a square deal at the bar of public opinion. Everybody knows that the vast majority of illegitimate children do not have a fair chance in the world's work. Professor Cattell, in _Science_, March, 1914, points out that since illegitimates occur one in every twenty-five births in the United States, and since they are on the whole equal to other children in mentality, there ought to be forty of them among the thousand leading men of science designated in the directory of the "American Men of Science;" but none are known. The conclusion must be that illegitimate children do not have an equal chance at education which leads to prominence in science. But it is not simply a matter of limited education, for in every way the fate of most illegitimate children is usually pitiful. Only now and then one born under a lucky star is adopted and educated by large-minded foster parents who recognize that the illegitimate is not responsible for having come into this world under conditions opposed to the best interests of society.

[Sidenote: Ignorance the cause.]

It seems to be generally accepted that in the vast majority of cases, unmarried mothers and illegitimate children are due to ignorance of the women. Women who are professionally immoral do not bear many children.[8] In fact, excepting the feeble-minded prostitutes, the general rule is that those who are mothers have only one child and that one the result of the first sexual errors. It is a safe general conclusion that ignorance of sexual laws is responsible for the great majority of cases of illegitimacy.

Edith Livingston Smith, of Boston, in an article on "Unmarried Mothers" in _Harper's Weekly_ for September 6, 1913, expressed views of the causes of illegitimacy that many a social worker will indorse heartily:

"I see shop girls and waitresses, factory girls and maids, chorus girls, stenographers, and governesses, each with a different story, each with the same terror of the consequences of their folly. 'I never knew,' they tell me, 'I never knew there were such temptations.'...

"Let us go back to the question of sex-education of the public. Silence has been the policy in the past. We have taught our children biology and natural history, we have taught them physiology, carefully ignoring the organs of reproduction; we have warned the young to make use of their senses and their brains, but we have refused to recognize the very force that guides all these instincts, the vital power of sex. Yet, in the face of this stupidity, acknowledging the call of the age, girls are sent out into the industrial world, where they fight shoulder to shoulder with men. Here they find potential worth of their individualities; here they meet with the same--no greater--temptation than their brothers, but with no knowledge to guide them, no traditions to give them poise, no ameliorating factor of social tenderness or tolerance when inexperience fails to temper their emotions and their femininity....

"A girl's protection must come from without, a boy's from within. Every boy who reaches the age of adolescence knows his nature. It asserts itself. His sex instincts are dominant, aggressive. He is man, the father of the race, and the laws of procreation are to him an open book. A girl stays innocent until she is awakened. It is the kiss, the touch, the senses stirred, that make her, in the glory of her womanhood or in her shame, acknowledge her sex.

"The very frailty of such a girl, her dependence upon her intuitions and emotions, the triumph of feeling over intellect, place her in greater danger than her brothers, even were their responsibility to society the same. But, add to this the fact that in yielding to sexual temptation she has the burden of child-bearing--how much more necessary that she should have some knowledge of what she is to meet in the world, or what she must combat, lest her emotions forestall her intelligence as physical development precedes mental appreciation."

[Sidenote: Men also ignorant.]

Illegitimacy is often due to ignorance of men as well as of women. Prominent physicians have cited from their notebooks cases of "protected" children in early adolescence who instinctively entered into sexual relationship in utter ignorance of the natural result. Such cases where the boy is entirely ignorant must be very rare; but there are probably many boys who do not really understand that the sexual act is very likely to lead to a ruined life for the girl companion and her offspring. Arthur Donnithorne, in "Adam Bede," did not forecast that his act would lead to the ruin of Hetty Sorrel and her condemnation for infanticide.

[Sidenote: More than biology needed.]

It is obvious that something more than the ordinary biological facts of reproduction must be included in sex-instruction that tries to prevent such tragedies. In another lecture we shall consider moral teaching, but here let us look at the cold facts of life that ought to be taught at some appropriate time to young people. Not only should they know the simple biological probability that sexual relationship will lead to reproduction, but they should be led to consider the relentless consequences of illegitimate propagation. On this latter point general literature, _e.g._, "Adam Bede" and "The Scarlet Letter," teaches some impressive lessons.

Another point needs emphasis with the numerous young people, especially men, who are not controlled by moral laws, who know the probabilities of illegitimacy occurring, but who have acquired the popular impression that the order of nature is easily changed. Many physicians and social workers know girls who have gone down because they were persuaded to trust the efficiency of popular ways and means of avoiding the natural outcome of the sexual act. Hence, young people of both sexes should somehow learn that under the conditions that usually attend illicit union there is always a strong probability that the ways of nature cannot be easily circumvented. It is unlawful to explain, except to medical audiences, why this is so; but much illegitimacy will be prevented if it can be made widely known among young men and women that, according to reliable physicians, tragedies of illegitimacy are often due to misplaced confidence in popular methods of contraception.

[Sidenote: Criminal operations.]

There is yet another line of information that if widely known might have some bearing on the problem of illicit sexual relations: Physicians and social workers report that many young men and some women know the possibility of illegitimate pregnancy, but feel safe because they know the addresses of doctors and midwives who will perform criminal operations. The great danger of the operation, especially at the hands of such third-class doctors as would attempt to terminate pregnancy criminally, should be widely known by the general public, which only now and then gets a hint in the newspaper reports of a tragedy involving some unfortunate girl.

[Sidenote: Relative passion of men and women.]

There is the widespread misunderstanding among young men that sexual hunger is as insistent in virtuous young women as in themselves and that therefore illicit gratification is a mutual gain and responsibility. Some young men may be guided by the information that there is much reliable evidence indicating that, while an innate tendency towards general emotions of affection is strong in the average young woman, there is general absence of the localized passions that naturally and automatically develop in young men. In other words, the first definite sexual temptation is likely to come to a young woman from outside herself, and young men should be impressed with their responsibility for allowing even the beginning of situations that may arouse dormant but dangerous instincts.

§ 10. _The Fifth Problem for Sex-education: Sexual Morality_

In this lecture I shall set forth the proposition that a definitely organized scheme of education should aim directly at making young people strict adherents of the established code of sexual morality. For brevity, I shall occasionally speak of morality and immorality, omitting the qualifying word "sexual."

[Sidenote: Definition of sexual morality.]

This lecture, in fact this entire series of lectures on sex-education, is based on the fundamental proposition that sexual morality demands that sexual union be restricted to monogamic marriage, and conversely, that such sexual relation outside of marriage is immoral. Such a definition of sexual morality is accepted by church and state and the chief citizens in every civilized country. It is the only practical definition which is satisfactory to the vast majority of educated American men and women, even to those who believe in freedom of divorce and in forgiveness for youthful transgressions of the accepted moral code. Sexual morality has had changeable standards, and in other times and countries custom has made polygamy and promiscuity acceptable as moral; but the monogamic ideal of morality now prevails in the world's best life.

[Sidenote: Morality in America and Europe.]